guenievre | An interesting discussion on remaining in persona

It is a difficult thing for me as well. I can look the part, but then I open my mouth and ruin it. LOL! I think newman had a number of excellent points.

My good friend Merouda has been keeping a journal in persona for the last year and I love reading it.
http://merouda.blogspot.com/

Wow, that'd be tempting to try. It'd certainly make me update more, actually, as many days my life is boring enough that updates aren't worthwhile every day, on the other hand the challenge of doing it in persona? might just be fun.

That does sounds like alot of fun!

I am *awful* *awful* *awful* at staying in persona at events to the point where I don't really try to hard anymore. (Yes, I *am* one of those people who talks about Heroes in garb. What can I say, I like Heroes.)

Part of it is that I tend to be pretty shy and not talk anyway, but I have such a hard time coming up with appropriate material for staying in persona that I have *nothing* to say... and I do like to speak every so often.

One of my goals is to try and work a little more on my persona, because I really only have a name, my arms, and a vague idea of when and where I'm from.

I don't watch Heroes, but I was rather bad about the WoW thing when I was still playing, as most of my guild was SCA-based.

The best advice I've ever gotten is to discuss whatever you'd normally discuss, but leave out the modern bits - if you got an email from someone, leave it as a "received a message" or even a missive and go on to talk about whatever was in it.

Caveat: This is from a guy who likes his pajama pants under his tunics.

It sounds like the author wants the SCA to be a LARP without the dice (do LARPs have dice?). That is really separate from what you, G, advocate (being the best re-creation of a 14th century Burgundian lady that you can).

The SCA is historical re-enactment. "All the best parts of the middle ages" really does not say "roleplaying" to me. It says "learning about history through doing". Whether or not we're talking about LJ while I'm learning about period swordplay, cooking, textiles, whatever, doesn't affect the learning, really.

I could spend the next two hours coming up with a list of things anachronistic to my persona. Discussions about LJ and people wearing polar fleece that I can't recognize as polar fleece are just drops in a bucket.
But I don't roleplay my persona. I don't fear for my mortal soul if I let a blackamoor go un-punished for his heathen Moslem ways. I take Aleve, not bleeding, when my helmet gives me a headache. I just go about re-creating (in my own special way) a 12th century dirty filthy English lord.

Well, no. Part of the reason I've been thinking about this in the past few days (though it is something I consider, if not do anything about, fairly often) is because as I mentioned yesterday I was privileged to spend a few hours conversing with His Grace Cariadoc while in Calontir. And he does it almost effortlessly, or so it seems from the outside.

I know - go read this - http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Articles_about_Persona.pdf - and then we'll talk. It's not LARPing, so much as forgetting the modern...

Oh, my! What an experience!

It sounds like the author wants the SCA to be a LARP without the dice (do LARPs have dice?)

Some LARPs do, and some LARPs don't.

And, no, that's not really what the author wants.

The SCA is historical re-enactment...[which to me means] learning about history through doing

That's not historical re-enactment. That's studying history. That's part of what the SCA does -- and it's an important part -- but it's not the "re-enactment" or "re-creation" part.

I'm not suggesting that the SCA would be a better place if people were racially intolerant, or if they were treated with period medicines. I'm saying the SCA would be a better place if people avoiding talking about blatantly modern things. YMMV.

I find it ironic that at the top of the post he goes after snark communities, then goes on to say that he's sick of people talking about modern stuff at events.

As I said in person, there's a difference between constructive criticism and "snark", which this didn't cross...

(For what it's worth, though I do read a few of the snark communities, I keep pondering getting off of them because they CAN be very meanspirited...)

Why?

The different problems I identify aren't related in any way, and my discussion of the things that I think of as problems isn't snarky.

People are allowed to complain. People are allowed to disagree. That's not what I don't like about LJ communities which promote catiness.

The discussion in my LJ is intended to be an open conversation about some of the issues I'm currently having with the SCA. Hopefully, we'll come up with some solutions.

Snark communities are about making fun of people behind their backs.

I didn't get back right away, because I've been thinking about this. I will concede the point that there is quite a bit of difference between your post and the average snark community.

I never thought I would do it, but I'm about to defend even the worst snark community (which I myself don't really want to be on...)

I assume the 1st Amendment argument is a given, but the second argument is this: Some times people do things in the SCA that make you want to shout from the roof tops and tear your hair out. While a snark community might not be the best idea for your venting, people do have a general human desire to vent about such things. Snark communities at least are a known quantity, it's a place where people can vent their issue and get it off their chest, so they don't just go blast the person with their issue. Can it backfire, sure, and you take that risk when you post.

Yes, some people take pleasure in snarking others, and that's not really all that good. However, if those communities give a few folks a place to vent that they didn't otherwise have, well then, they aren't 100% bad.

I agree that blasting someone at an SCA event is a Bad Thing. Walking up to someone and yelling "My god, woman! You call that 'garb'?! What drugs are you taking!" is an impulse we've all had -- and all supressed.

While that is true -- how is talking about someone behind their back ever going to fix the problem? A lot of the problems with garb, feast menus, etc. at SCA events aren't malice; they're ignorance. How are people ever going to learn if we all make our comments behind their backs, rather than to their faces?

Yes, on a snark group there's the freedom to be as mean as you want, to openly point and laugh at someone, without worrying about hurting their feelings.

Is that really a good thing? Sure, it's the lesser of two evils... but it's still an evil.

A couple of suggestions that might be of some help --

The Clan has (used to have?) a code phrase that we used when the conversation was too far off the mark. One of us would say, "How are your hawks?" This meant, "Can we talk about something less glaringly modern, please?" (The approved BlueDuke answer, by the way, was always, "Just ducky, thank you.")

Roxbury Mill has, from time to time, held "persona practice," on the theory that we practice everything else we do in the SCA, but not staying in persona. We would do it on a weeknight, in "hanging around the castle" (i.e., casual) garb, and we would have a potluck dinner. We would try to make ordinary conversation, with or without a specific topic, without using blatantly modern language. It helped.

The BlueDuke and I once went on a walking tour of the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. We discovered that the management has some clear rules about what the "cast members" are allowed to say "on stage," that is, out in the public, open areas where everybody (especially kids) can hear, and what they have to say "off stage," like in the service tunnels or a closed, backstage area. It might help a little to think of the main activity areas of events as being the public areas, where your vocabulary and conversational topics should be a little circumspect, and save more obviously modern conversations for the changing rooms or the post-revel or the private camps.

Caveat: All of the above IN NO WAY encourages use of stupid word choices like "dragon" for car, "farspeaker" for telephone, or "smalls" for children.

Definitely some things to think about - and the hawk thing is cute!!!

Keilyn, Girard and I had a long conversation about the persona thing a few years ago - she pointed out that it's a much eaiser thing to do when one doesn't notice the difference - ie when you haven't trained your eye to pick out natural/artifical fibers at 20 paces, etc. Do you think that's true? and if so, do you think that people having more resources, accuracy-wise, in today's SCA makes the persona thing harder to do?

I think you pay the price for knowing more - Bob and I always call it the "I see what's behind the curtain" syndrome - the longer you're in, the more you see the unromantic nuts and bolts that hold the fantasy together.

I see myself, after almost 19 years, as someone with a bag of tools, going around and helping to strengthen the bolts that are good, so other people can enjoy them, and attempting to upgrade the bolts that are not so good. I can't see the fantasy as easily as I did when I was new, but that doesn't mean I need to rip apart anyone else's. :)

I have this great ability to forget things. It sounds like a failing, but I've embraced it as a handy thing to have around. If you and I have some deep, private conversation, and then at the end you say "Just forget about this...", I will literally forget what we talked about. If you bring it up again, you'll have to start from scratch.

So, I think I've started applying that to SCA events. I look at pictures of events I've been to, and see things in the background that just weren't there for me that day. The cars behind the pavilions at TOC, are a good example. Sure, I noticed them at first, but when I was in my stuff and ready to go, well, they were forgotten, and now don't even factor into my memories of the event.

What a perfectly wonderful idea. Actually, what wonderful ideas even.

Such a phrase is brilliant, and the practice sounds splendid!

I too want to do better at being not-glaringly-modern in my conversations, but most times I either 1) don't talk or 2) talk about my projects. And not in the manner of 'here I used synthetics to mimic the look of blah', but rather as a modern scholar discussing sources. 'Well, this here is the typical doo-hickey, found in this book'

I feel non-participatory on the first count, and jarring on the second. Although, at an event is where I meet people not from my shire to geek out over various A&S pursuits which is my main interest within the SCA.

I have thought, and continue to think about this very issue though. For example, greeting somebody new, being introduced to me, my instinct is to extend a hand and give a firm handshake, and I just don't stop myself in time, or know what to do instead. I should curtsey I suppose.

I'll stop babbling now before I talk your ear off :)

What many in the SCA refer to as "in persona" is a first-person impression. I don't do it; too many people sound like the Lucky Charms Leprechaun on crack when they do it. If you do it, you should do it well. For an excellent book on first-person impressions, look up _Past Into Present_ by Stacy Roth (http://www.users.voicenet.com/%7Efrstprsn/). I don't agree with some of the things dshe says, but dang, she says them nice!

I don't think I'll ever truly get to the point of "staying in persona" all the time; as some of the comments in the original post pointed out this is the only time I see certain friends. However, the ideal of leaving the blatent modernity behind is certainly appealing.

And I'll certainly check out that book... hmm, it's published by UNC press, bet they therefore have a copy... (I live 10 minutes from campus...) ::goes off to check the online catalog::

LOL

I'd have to have more of a persona than just a name to stay in persona! I know, I know. I'm working on it!

An interesting discussion on remaining in persona

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